School says “bring lots of cash”

[Queestuproblema]

I’ll start this by saying I understand schools are underfunded and have been doing Christmas markets/summer fayres/wear x colour for £1 days since even I have been at school. It’s not going to stop but the leaflet we’ve been sent this week quotes:

”Spring market
Come and toast the coronation!
Support our school, bring bags and lots of cash”

AIBU to think the wording of bring lots of cash is completely insensitive to how much everyone is struggling right now? I don’t feel that part was necessary. They could’ve made the leaflet without that surely given some children wont even be able to attend with a few pounds.

That must be so infuriating. I can't even imagine what it's like to have people talking on your behalf, as if you can't quite happily talk for yourself.

Some people have really taken the cost of living crisis as an identify and use it to critique everything. relax a little

Our school usually says no more that £5 or something

Made me LOL! 🤣

I agree it's poorly worded but not something I'd be bothered about. People will bring what they can afford whether that's a pound coin or 20 notes

So, noticing that the current well-meant phrasing seems to inadvertently put some people off a bit (which it clearly does, whether you choose to characterise that as people being "professionally offended" or not), exploring the reasons those people might be finding it off-putting, and giving an example of how this sort of thing is often phrased elsewhere in order to avoid annoying people and potentially missing out on revenue — on an anonymous webforum where the original author is very unlikely ever to see it, but where OP hoped it would provoke a discussion, and some people might be interested in why this phrasing has got some people's backs up and how you might avoid doing that — is "kicking a hapless volunteer"?

We all (presumably) want the school to raise as much as possible, while providing a fun experience for the children and avoiding pressuring anyone into giving money they can't afford.

I posted because I think it's really unfortunate if the way a leaflet is phrased might unintentionally offend or annoy someone, and cause a school/PTA to miss out on some potential revenue. I think that conversations about what kind of phrasing and terminology might annoy or offend a certain portion of people, and why, are potentially useful things to have.

You interpret that as vindictive slating of a specific individual (who, yes, might be of any background — I'm not sure whether their background is relevant… I'm sure whatever the background, they'd prefer to know if phrasing things a particular way might affect whether people donate). I'm not sure why you read my post as an attack on a person, rather than a discussion of a phrase. If I'm trying to do some persuasive writing and someone says, "Hey, I know that's not how you meant it, but the way you've written this might not come across as [x] to some people, could it be more likely to get you what you want if you write [y]?" then that's not kicking anyone.

Start a thread on MN about it in protest !

Sounds fine to me. Bookmarket sounds like a splendid idea.

Better than yet an other sponsored run!!😫
(Although I am quite partial to a good cake sale.)

I'm not sure. I grew up very poor and my other very poor friends also hated this. There is a fine line between advocating for someone and being extremely patronising towards them. This sort of thing assumes that poor people don't have a brain and can't speak up for themselves. I cannot understand why someone would get offended by a fundraiser reminding people to bring cash. If they didn't, people would be upset by that.
I'm sure people will get there and be upset at the prices too. You really can't win and this is one of the many many reasons why teachers are leaving and PTAs are dying out. Parents throwing a fit because they're reminder to bring cash. It's insane.

Yes, silly wording. If you don't like it, you might not go. If you don't go, you don't bring money. Next time the organisers might be more careful with wording. However, some people never learn.

If it's a fundraiser it's probably the PTA who came up with the phrase

Wipe your arse on the leaflet and send it back, cheeky fuckers.

Just choose not to be offended.

I was on our school parent council until recently and we were VERY careful about what we charged for fundraising events and how things were worded, especially at the moment, so yes, I agree the bring lots of cash is a bit insensitive.

I also don’t think any school should be encouraging a toast to the coronation. The billions spent on the UKs biggest scroungers could buy a lot of equipment and resources for schools and the NHS.

The Royals generate more GDP for the country than they cost.

Ds’s school is always fleecing us for cash, it’s par for the course, I couldn’t get worked up about it.

Fundraisers, no uniform days, bake sales, tuck shops, Young Enterprise sales, sponsorships, specially printed t-shirts for events, class equipment contributions, charity collections, food bank donations. It something different every week, and that’s before even thinking about foreign trips, day trips and school fees.
The joys!

You posted to slate some poor volunteer doing their best and try to show how much better a job you could do. As it happens, your own offering was so over-wordy that it probably wouldn't have fitted on the poster, or it would have looked like a total wall of text. And people would have fallen asleep before they got to the end of it.

Nobody who actually prioritises a school fundraiser over their own need to feel offended or superior will refuse to go because some unpaid volunteer who isn't a comms professional used a turn of phrase that some people don't like. Nor will they blame the non-professional volunteer over the school parent who chooses to try to ruin a fundraiser because they were so desperate to be offended and righteous.

They don't want your money to buy themselves a nice coffee or take a bonus ..its staff and PTA volunteers attending school outside of working hours (i.e. unpaid) to raise money to spend on YOUR children. They're hardly going to check your pockets on the way in to make sure you've brought enough and many of them will be struggling with rising costs too.

Oh dear… that was quick. What next? I’ll take the bank holiday - damn right I will, I’ve done more to earn it than they have.

The full cost of the parasites is actually well hidden, thanks to them making sure they are above the law when it comes to freedom of information.

Any tourism generated is more to do with the buildings etc which would still exist if the monarchy was abolished. No one comes to the country to see them in person. France gets plenty of tourists as a republic, and so would we.

They're using a public interest news hook to drum up interest in their fundraiser. Coronation stuff is everywhere, it's the obvious theme. Which do you value more, supporting the school or expressing your opposition to the monarchy in an event that doesn't actually make any difference to it?

Jaysus, I'm so glad I refused the volunteering role that involved communicating with members of the public. I do something else instead that means I can be useful without having to take all this crap because I possibly missed a nuance in something I've never done professionally, offending a load of people who can't actually do it any better.

We shouldn’t need to fundraisers for essential items for our schools and the scroungers are part of the problem.

I'm not a royalist myself, but the reason schools need more money is not because of the Royal Family.

At any rate, even if it were, you complaining about a coronation fundraiser and refusing to support it makes no difference to Charles and only punishes the school.

People won't be travelling to the UK from across the globe, staying in hotels, and eating at restaurants in London to stare at an empty building this weekend. They're coming to try and catch a glimpse of the King and so they can say that they were here during his Coronation.

Yes, I know it's wordy. It was an example of the kind of phrasing I've seen a million times on this sort of thing, not My Superior Alternative. I considered including a shorter version too (or instead), but decided that for a quick MN post — where I'm not claiming to be putting forth suggested wording, just trying to hold the OP's example next to a more common or typical way of phrasing this kind of thing — a version which bolds the most important parts would do.

If this thread were about providing information in formats accessible to those with difficulties extracting information from large chunks of text, I'd have plenty to say about it. I'm reasonably confident I've done more pressuring and campaigning on that front than the majority of those on this thread. But the thread is about phrasing that the OP, and some others, find offensive, insulting, annoying, insensitive, or otherwise offputting, to one degree or another, not reading ability. I found it interesting to think about things like, for example, how the interpretation of the meaning "cash" affects the level of formality, which might affect whether people feel their money is being respected.

I think that the response "can you see that you can't please everyone" is a bit of a cop-out. Apart from the fact that I'm not trying to please anyone and posted because I think it's an interesting topic rather than because I have fayre leaflets to write, if I was told that my phrasing for something like this might have soured some people against my fundraising event, no matter how unreasonable I thought that offence-taking might be, I'd want to at least think about whether there was an alternative that met the same requirements but didn't put those people off. I wouldn't think "Hmm… when some random person on Mumsnet typed something phrased differently for comparison, it was too long and a bit shit — ah well, can't please everyone, so we'll stick with the one that some people found offputting." I might even decide to stick with my original phrasing.

Funny thing is, I don't even personally find it offensive 😅 I just got my interest piqued and started thinking about why some people might.

@HeadbandOverMyEyes I really cannot be bothered to read your essay. I'm sure you're a lovely person irl. Take care.